


of bridges burned

by orphan_account



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Airports, Happy Ending, M/M, Older Characters, Soulmates, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aomine is already starting to retrace his steps. He’s already starting to drown in high school memories again, self-induced asphyxiation, suffocation by the ashes of the bridges he willingly burned. He isn’t here so he can wallow in regret and try to make amends. He’s ready to move on and moving on means just that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of bridges burned

**06/11, HND to ITM, 05:15 AM**

It kind of pisses him off, if he’s being totally honest about it. Maybe it’s because he’s getting to that ripe age where all of his friends are finding theirs and he’s left to combat questions from overly nosy aunts and uncles about whether he’s feeling the signs yet too. Everyone tells him the same thing in what he thinks is supposed to be consolation: " _It takes time, Aomine! You can't rush something like this!_ " And frankly? He isn't even bothering trying to anticipate the emotional fireworks that everyone claims are the most phenomenal chest-squeezing sensation in the world—

They learn about it in health class in middle school. The teacher goes on a tirade about abstinence and his friends turn bright red as their voices crack and they're called out for their pubescence. In the midst of all of this awkward settling in, they learn about _soulmates_ and how there's supposed to be one for every single person in the world. It isn't anything new—all of the shows on the television feature the same sort of premise after all. Girl meets boy and fall madly in love. They fret about whether they're meant to be. One day, boy says something cheesy like, _"I need you. You're the only one for me. I... love you..."_ and the words _I love you_ trigger the fireworks, the heart-squeezing, the warm cheeks.

He's always been a little doubtful. It's been quite some time since middle school, quite some time since all he had to worry about was beating himself at his own game in gym class and trying his absolute best to graduate with semi-passable marks. Soulmates are still all the rage and he has friends his age, mid-twenties and carpe diem-ing, finding their other halves and unintentionally rubbing it in his face that, well.

He fucking hasn't.

If he thinks about it—if he really thinks about it, he doesn't give more than _two_ relatively mediocre sized shits. Yeah, so he's been spending the substantive years of his life pursuing basketball as a career (and _failing_ ) and maybe that's made it difficult for him to devote time to soul-seeking and bettering his life emotionally. Maybe he’s spent a lot of his glory days pushing aside faces he caught himself thinking of too fondly. He's supposed to be making his soulmate a priority, according to his parents. It's all anyone ever talks about to him these days.

He knows how it works. He'll meet someone and there'll be a fucking connection or something—something cheesy as fuck like those rom-coms that Satsuki used to be obsessed with. They won't know anything for sure until they say the _words_ , which is annoying as is because they won't know what the _words_ are, just that whatever they are, once it's said out loud, are going to trigger something that'll make it absolutely positive that they're meant to be. They'll probably make out then, maybe get arrested for public indecency before spending an intimate night in a jail cell and getting married the next day or something.

Aomine sighs, slouching in the rigid airport seat, legs spread out before him. It's ass o'clock in the morning and he can barely function, let alone contemplate the uncertainty of his future. He could pray about it, maybe. He's never been religious but one-sided conversations are his forte (though he's usually on the other side—the one that ignores, not the one that's ignored) and he's sure if he prays hard enough, some deity up there will take pity and give him holy introspection.

It's five o'clock in the morning; he has a one hour flight ahead of him and a likely-to-be excruciating business trip waiting in Osaka. His luck is shit and even though the airport's quiet at this hour, he's positive he's going to sit next to the guy who farts in his sleep or something.

 _Dear God,_ he tries.

 _Dear anyone who will fucking listen,_ he amends in his mind, closing his eyes conclusively and leaning his head back, slumping. His hands are folded on his stomach as he tries to string together what he thinks might be a pretty convincing prayer. _It's Aomine. You probably know me. Probably seen me fuck up every now and then._

The disgruntled airport attendant announces that they'll be boarding in less than ten minutes.

_Pretty sure you're supposed to be all-knowing or whatever so I don't feel like I have to tell you what I want but, uh, busty—that would be nice. Extra nice if she gets along with Satsuki. But not too much. I don't want to deal with that shit._

He can make out the faint noise of a suitcase being wheeled across the tile. It's clicking, like one of the wheels is broken. Aomine almost opens his eyes but he's a respectful guy and he doesn't want to offend the higher deities by cutting his prayer short.

 _Maybe soon._ He purses his lips together, brows furrowing almost instinctively. His twenty-fourth birthday is coming soon and he figures it might be a nice surprise to, you know, not spend it avoiding Satsuki's calls and his parents' demands to _talk_. 

_Really fucking soon_ , he finally concludes. _Like today would be nice._

There's another announcement: the first batch of passengers is allowed to board at this time.

_So, busty. Agreeable. Good chef. Think... Horikita Mai. Soon. Amen._

Aomine opens his eyes then, stares dully at the ceiling and then makes a titanic effort to straighten himself up in his seat. He taps his fingers impatiently on the armrest before making moves to get up, to drag his shit over to the entryway so he can contemplate the futility of his sad-as-shit life on the plane too.

He sighs and jams a hand into his pocket before dragging himself over to greet the sullen attendant. It's all learned by this point. He hands her his ticket, watches as she scans it, shakes his head when she offers him a tag for checked bags—

"Thank you," she says flatly, "and please enjoy the f—"

"Wait!" someone shouts too loudly, too frantically for five in the fucking morning. 

Aomine almost flinches. He grimaces instead, expression contorted into one of mild annoyance as he turns back to acknowledge the public disturbance. There’s a creeping hunch at the back of his mind that he’s going to regret this—going to regret turning around to satiate his damn curiosity, but he does it anyway.

And he’s right. He regrets it.

It’s been years since high school. It’s been years since he let everyone back in just to push them all back out because he was stubborn, he was foolish, and more than anything, he just wanted to make his own damn decisions without having to guilt trip himself about what the _others_ would think.

It’s out of his control, the way he freezes. Gold, all he processes is gold. Kise has hardly changed. He’s still blindingly bright and Aomine finds himself gritting his teeth instinctively because if he squints, if he holds his breath and counts to ten, he can picture days when this metaphorical wall wasn’t between them. They lock eyes and Kise looks prepared to say something but Aomine turns away.

He purses his lips together resolutely and slips past the attendant with a muted, “thanks.”

As he’s walking, he can make out the calmed cadences of Kise’s voice. It’s been years, fucking _years_ since the last time he heard Kise, let alone saw him in person and not on those giant billboards that taunted him wherever he went. There’s a kind of ache in the core of Aomine’s chest and his jaw tenses reactively.

“Is this the flight to Kyoto?” he hears Kise ask, his voice faint. “I—I ran here as fast as I could but… Oh no. I missed it? My manager’s going to kill me and…”

Kise fades into nothing, much like the rest of Aomine’s thoughts.

-

He sees Kise everywhere all of a sudden. He's on every fucking billboard in Osaka and Aomine feels like he's being watched. The hotel lobby offers complementary magazines while waiting and he's on every cover of those too. It’s like the deity he prayed to is toying with him, taunting him—bullying him like “ _you’re looking for your soulmate but you aren’t even over…_ ”

Aomine flattens his eyes in mild disinterest before tossing the magazines aside and leaning back on one of the lobby couches. He closes his eyes again and tries to filter out the noise, the indistinct chatter of people conversing happily as they weave in and out of the hotel. There are a couple of missed calls on his phone and a few text messages he's tactfully avoided.

It's weird, this drag in his body. He's lazy, yeah, but he's never felt this sort of drained in a while. Aomine scowls, eyes still closed, and crosses his arms against his chest. He has business to do tomorrow and it's no good if his mind's filled with stupid shit like giant billboards and flickers of gold.

 

**06/29, NRT to ICN, 04:45 AM**

This time he's wearing sunglasses and a hat, huddled in the very corner of the waiting area, presumably asleep. There’s a guy next to him too, someone Aomine’s assuming is his manager or something along those lines because he’s scowling into his magazine and hardly paying attention to Kise dozing off next to him. It's weird how Aomine recognizes him instantaneously as he's making his way to an isolated seat just a comfortable distance away. It's weird how this is the second time already that he's crashed into Kise within the span of a couple of weeks.

Flights are always early morning or late night for him. There aren't as many people to jostle his way around and he doesn't have to devote half of his attention to selectively tuning the voices of strangers out. It's fairly empty today; the waiting area only has about six people, himself included. Three of them are closer to the entryway, a father, a mother, and a tiny son who's sleeping on his mother's lap.

It’s been years, Aomine reminds himself. He isn’t the same temperamental punk he used to be and there’s no reason, no good reason for him to say anything, to start anything. He doesn’t really have the right to anyway, and he thinks Satsuki would be proud of him for coming to this emotionally rational conclusion all on his lonesome.

The attendant starts the boarding calls and he watches surreptitiously as Kise jolts awake. His sunglasses are disheveled, crooked on his face as he tries to right himself.

Aomine snorts to himself without thinking and almost forgets how to steel his expression when he realizes Kise is _staring_ at him, dazed. He ignores it immediately, getting onto his feet to walk towards the attendant's desk and to avoid lingering on why his heart just skipped a beat.

He thinks of high school as a stain. Sure, some good came out of it but it didn’t teach him how to make the right decisions in the end and it’s showing now. Aomine thinks if he were anyone else, there’d be no problem sidling up to Kise’s side and smacking his head in amicable greeting—body language for _please, let’s forget, let’s move on._

Aomine is Aomine though and he’s the biggest asshole he knows aside from Imayoshi.

It's on the way into the plane that he remembers to pray.

 _Hey God or whoever,_ he thinks as he readjusts the strap of his laptop bag on his shoulder, _busty, agreeable, good chef—soon._

 

**07/10, HND to UKY, 11:20 PM**

"Hey," he says gruffly into the phone, staring idly at the barely functional watch strapped around his wrist, "I missed my flight so..."

Out of the corner of his eye, he swears he sees gold and something disgustingly pastel colored but he writes it off, ignores it because his “boss” (emphasis on the sarcasm) is pulling that creepy _I have so much hell planned for you_ voice on him again and Aomine isn't paid enough to deal with Imayoshi's shit.

Some things follow him from high school and Aomine isn’t able to avoid them. Imayoshi is one of those _things_ , marginally worse than others.

"Do you understand?" Imayoshi asks on the other end, saccharine sweet and deceivingly so.

"Aah?" Aomine's voice rises in volume unintentionally and he grits his teeth together. "Forget it. No way I'm busing to Kyoto right now…"

Imayoshi says something indistinct about how terrible Aomine's personality is and how he's deeply sorry to whoever has to deal with him in the future. Aomine tactfully opts to hang up and ignores the texts and calls he gets from his office mates until Sakurai sends him a picture of honey lemons as a bribe.

"Put the creepy old man on the phone," he demands to a stuttering Sakurai. He waits until he hears the faint shuffling of the phone being handed over to Imayoshi.

"Yes?"

"Go fuck yourself."

There are so many damn people he needs to prove wrong to catch a break, Aomine realizes. He’s ignoring the fact that it would be nice to have someone waiting for him in his shithole of an apartment because yeah, empty homes are never nice but _more importantly_ , he needs to wipe Imayoshi’s smug smile off his face.

 

**07/28, HND to OKD, 09:10 PM**

“What do you want?”

“Dai-chan, be nicer!” Satsuki’s voice is (not that he’d ever admit it to her face or to anyone with hearing capabilities) a nice surprise after an entire evening spent trying to argue with his taxi driver about the ridiculous fare.

He doesn’t reply, letting her sulk for all of five seconds before continuing on with whatever’s on her mind.

“I have good news for you,” she says brightly. “Well, for me! But good news anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“Sound a little more excited, Dai-chan!’

“Hurry up or I’m hanging up,” Aomine grumbles back, hardly meaning it.

Satsuki huffs over the phone but her mood lifts almost immediately—and this is when Aomine starts to realize what’s coming.

“You found her?” he asks mildly.

“I found her! I found my soulmate!”

She trails off into her retelling of the story and Aomine tries to mask the fact that he’s actually happy for her by intermittently calling her stupid and cheesy. By the time his flight’s calling for the first boarding group, Satsuki is positively _reeling_ and there’s a faint smile on Aomine’s face too.

“Congrats,” he says flatly. He pauses, weighs his words. “I’m happy for you.”

And he is, he really is—even if it means that that’s one more person in his life who’s found their other half while he’s still floating in between two realms of total apathy and total denial. He tries not to think too hard about it while he’s getting situated on the plane. He tries not to count the people who have moved forward while he’s still resolutely moving back.

The flight is full today and Aomine sits next to a teenage girl who passes her time gingerly flipping through a photobook of _Kise_.

He almost laughs, almost leans over to point to his face and say “ _wait until you see this idiot in his sleep_ ” but he stops himself. He keeps forgetting, these days especially, that he’s the one who left. He’s the one who pushed them away. He’s the one who moved on.

Kise’s probably found his other half by now too—he was always searching, relentlessly.

Aomine thinks he’d probably be happy for Kise too.

 

**08/17, NRT to PEK, 06:25 AM**

At seventeen, he remembers feeling prepared to conquer. Thinking back, he doesn’t remember _what_. He’s always been like that though—still is, always starting things he knows he can’t finish, diving into situations without envisioning the end. There’s something to be said, probably, about surprise and how a good dose of it never did anyone harm but at seventeen, he remembers being tired of having no fucking direction.

Seventeen is an interesting age but eighteen is when he decides there’s no direction to be found. Eighteen is when he plays his last basketball game and spots Kise in the crowd, watching him—cheering for him. Eighteen is when Aomine finds Kise directly after and pins him to the wall of the empty locker room just to kiss him until he can’t even find the breath to say the words he should have fucking said. Eighteen is when he indulges himself, when he spends hours trying to figure out how to say _sorry_ , when Kise spends minutes just to tell him he never wanted an apology.

Eighteen is sweet but it doesn’t last, and Aomine remembers most vividly the unspoken goodbye.

 

**08/31, HND to ITM, 04:15 AM**

“Aominecchi.”

He knows he shouldn’t turn around, shouldn’t bother acknowledging Kise trying to reach out to him but it’s been too long. The past few encounters have weighed heavily on Aomine’s mind for as long as he can remember and he’s tired too.

So he looks up from where he’s sitting and offers Kise a practiced glance, one that he’s stripped of any warmth. He doesn’t say anything, gaze hooded as he waits, expectant.

Kise has always been bright, always been so excruciatingly difficult to ignore. The flashes of gold Aomine’s been thinking about are hardly a coincidence. Kise is as blinding as the sun sometimes and Aomine’s coming to terms with how he never once forgot.

There’s a measured calm to Kise’s stature. He is guarded too, defensive, careful about his body language and the expressions on his face. He’s always been like this as well, too tactful about how he presents himself to the point that even he needs to be reminded to be himself. Aomine doesn’t remind him though, not today.

This is their first conversation in years. Aomine can remember one-sided text message conversations, phone calls he never returned, voicemails he pretended to delete—

“Happy birthday.”

“Oi, Kise!” someone shouts from behind Aomine. “We’re going to miss your flight again if you keep dawdling!”

Kise offers a smile to the person before redirecting his attention to Aomine, offering him a brief nod before leaving, just like that.

Aomine realizes belatedly that he’s missed that stupid fucking nickname.

 

**09/01, TOKYO, 03:18 AM**

_Dear God or whoever the fuck is up there,_ he thinks to himself while he’s sprawled out on his bed, staring dully at the ceiling, _this is bullshit._

 

**09/17, NRT to SHA, 09:50 AM**

It’s fucked up, if he really thinks about it, how the world keeps insisting that he relive his past mistakes while he’s trying to concede that he’s ready to move forward. This time, the trip is longer. He’ll stay in Shanghai for a solid month and a half doing external work and then he’ll come back and go straight to Hokkaido for another month and a half. By the time he makes it back to Tokyo, it’ll be mid-December and he’ll have to rush to get Satsuki a present so he can drop it off at her mailbox without her finding out who it’s from.

He’ll have his mind on business, on working—there’ll be no room for distractions, no room for flashes of gold, no room for spite for the sun.

Kise is alone today, wearing the same giant sunglasses as before and a hat as well. He’s curled up in the seats furthest from Aomine, staring intently at his phone.

He should say something, maybe thank him for the birthday wish or ask him how he’s been.

Aomine is already starting to retrace his steps. He’s already starting to drown in high school memories again, self-induced asphyxiation, suffocation by the ashes of the bridges he willingly burned. He isn’t here so he can wallow in regret and try to make amends. He’s ready to move on and moving on means just that.

 

**10/12, SHANGHAI, 11:38 PM**

Satsuki sends a text message about how she’s doing well and appreciates the fact that Aomine’s too insensitive to ask first. Aomine replies with a picture of the international texting rates and suggestions for how she might pay him back.

They banter back and forth for a little bit through LINE instead and Satsuki gushes about how life is going with a soulmate. Her gushing, actually, never stops and Aomine has to hold his tongue to refrain from raining on her parade like he would have, really, if she weren’t so damn happy about it.

 _I can’t wait until you find yours, Dai-chan,_ Satsuki sends him.

Aomine doesn’t respond.

 

 **11/28, SAPPORO, 09:19 AM**

There’s a billboard of Kise in Sapporo right across from the office he’s currently working in and this, this is how Aomine knows there is truly a hell.

“Are you listening to me?” Imayoshi asks on the other end of the phone.

“No,” Aomine replies, dragging his hand down his face and bitterly turning his chair around.

 

**11/29, SAPPORO, 02:48 AM**

“Well,” Satsuki begins thoughtfully, “I think you could start by apologizing.”

 

**12/13, OKD to HND, 07:25 PM**

The flight’s delayed due to unexpected snowfall.

He’s already waited two hours and the attendant isn’t optimistic about the plane arriving anytime soon. He admits defeat for now. There’s nothing to do in an airport but he wants to get back home as soon as possible so he might as well wait, maybe take a nap or watch as people complain unnecessarily about the weather.

Aomine manages to drift off for a solid fifteen minutes. When he opens his eyes, the first sight he sees is _Kise_ , sitting off to the right, staring blankly at the snow falling outside. It’s barely visible because of how dark it is but Aomine figures looking at the snow is better than looking at him.

Maybe it’s recklessness—which he knows all too well—or maybe it’s stupidity—which he knows even better—but his feet are moving on their own and before he knows it, Aomine’s sitting in the empty seat right next to Kise. He can sense the alarm almost immediately, the flicker of panic that flashes over Kise’s face before he steels himself, purses his lips resolutely.

“What are you doing?” Kise asks coolly, voice surprisingly level.

Aomine shrugs, looking forward instead of at Kise. “What does it look like? I’m sitting.”

There’s a long pause before Kise starts to shift, reaching for his bag and making moves to get up and occupy another seat _away_ from Aomine. Maybe it’s impulse again, but Aomine reaches out and grabs his wrist before he can get too far.

“What are you doing?” Kise repeats, though his voice wavers ever so slightly at the end.

“Just sit down,” Aomine says, “and we can… talk or whatever.”

Kise narrows his eyes and parts his lips, like he’s prepared to tell Aomine the exact reasons why he shouldn’t ever have to feel obligated to sit down or _talk_. He extricates his wrist from Aomine’s grip and for a second, Aomine’s pretty convinced he fucked up for the last time—

But then Kise sits down, primly, stubbornly, like a sulking child. His lips are set neutrally and he’s looking forward now too, instead of at Aomine.

Aomine almost regrets it. There’s a part of him that had been wishing for Kise to lash out at him, to ask questions he wouldn’t get the answer to—not today, maybe not ever. He’s amused though, watching Kise compose himself and act like a fucking adult of all things.

“You look stupider,” Aomine says carelessly.

Kise flinches and whirls around, looking absolutely _affronted_ and then shocked all at once when he realizes he’s broken his own façade. He bites his lower lip like he’s conflicted, caught between playing it cool again or punching Aomine in the face right here and right now. He glowers, an ineffective frown on his face as he turns away from Aomine once more.

“You’re still a jerk,” he says.

“Tch,” Aomine scoffs. “Well some things never change.”

He can see the sag in Kise’s shoulders because he’s been watching him all this time. He can see the way Kise’s shoulders tense up again, like he’s ready to crawl back into his defensive position.

Instead, he turns around so he doesn’t have his back turned to Aomine. His expression is resigned, something tired, something defeated.

“Some things never change?” The tone is challenging, like Kise wants to know what Aomine could possibly be hung up on when he’s the one who threw everything, everyone away.

“You hate me or what?” Aomine asks instead.

“Of course,” Kise replies effortlessly. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Never said you shouldn’t.”

“Then why’d you _ask_?” This time, his words are sharp, his tone fierce—like he’s losing the little grasp on composure he’d fabricated. “Why’d you ask if you already know?”

“Just because,” Aomine says, _mutters_. And he doesn’t know, to be honest. He doesn’t know why he bothered asking when he can’t even forgive himself for the shit he pulled. He tries not to let it show, tries not to be obvious about the fact that he’s just as fucking confused as the next guy.

“Are you ever going to answer my questions? The ones that aren’t asking for one on one’s?”

This is confusing—this, being the way Kise’s tone has softened, like he’s trying to ease Aomine into a comfort zone rather than corner him in the shadows.

Aomine is quiet, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket as he slouches in his seat, gaze set on the empty row of chairs before him. He kind of practiced what to say with Satsuki. It was weird pretending she was Kise, trying to overlook the fact that she was far from the golden-haired boy who haunted him. The script wasn’t anything dramatic, just a couple of apologies sprinkled with concise explanations for what he did and why he did them.

But here, now, he can’t even remember a single part of his conversation with Satsuki save for her singular, honest suggestion.

_I think you could start by apologizing._

“Kise.”

“Yeah?”

“I fucked up—I know.”

“Yeah,” Kise murmurs resignedly. “I don’t hate you, for the record. I did initially but I think even insensitive assholes might deserve to be forgiven and forgotten.”

“Forgotten?” Aomine repeats, raising a brow and craning his head to look at the side of Kise’s.

“I mean I tried, but then this—” Kise gestures wildly with his hand, “—happened, like the world was punishing me for trying to forget. The world really is cruel, huh, Aominecchi? Bringing me to airports where you’re right there, reminding me that assholes like you are still around… Hm, must be fate?”

“You’re still an idiot,” Aomine says sagely, leaning back in his seat. “You believe in that crap?”

“Hm… Midorimacchi and his old teammate found out they were soulmates maybe a month ago? If I have to believe in soulmates, of course I’ll believe in fate, _Aho_ mine.”

“ _Oi_ ,” Aomine says warningly, though there’s little impact in his voice. “He's still doing well then, huh?”

“Mhm,” Kise murmurs. “Midorimacchi’s in medical school. You’re curious about the rest, aren’t you?”

It’s scary how they fall back into this ease of discourse, how Aomine forgets for a sweet moment that this is the man he left behind out of fear, out of hesitation, out of selfishness. He doesn’t say much while Kise talks about their old friends, how they’re doing, where they are. Kise hasn’t changed much. There’s still something guarded about him, but it’s nothing Aomine has any right to complain about. He talks animatedly about who he thinks is going to find their soulmate soon and speaks in length about virtually everyone but himself.

“I’m just—business,” Aomine says when Kise asks what _he’s_ been up to.

Kise hums thoughtfully, lips pursed as he nods. “No basketball then?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?”

He could tell him the truth, talk about how the flame that got reignited flickered and died again after Aomine decided he needed to learn to be self-sufficient once more. He could tell Kise that he didn’t want to play a basketball that wasn’t exciting, that didn’t include _Kise_ in the equation.

“Didn’t want to,” Aomine says instead.

There’s still lingering tension between them that Aomine’s trying his best to ignore. For someone as oblivious as him, it’s a surprise how gratingly difficult it is pretending that things might be normal again between him and Kise. He could bring up Imayoshi and how he still has a creepy smile; he could joke about how he sees Kise’s ugly face everywhere he goes.

He has questions though, things he wants to, needs to know about Kise. The tension, the tangible wall between them, however, makes it difficult for Aomine to reach out and ask— _when you moved forward, did you leave all of me behind?_

“Aominecchi, did you find your poor, unfortunate, other half yet?” Kise asks innocently.

“You want to die, Kise?” Aomine says almost immediately, words slipping past his lips naturally. He glowers as Kise shrugs and beams at him, playing the guileless card while Aomine rolls his eyes. “No. You?”

“You would expect me to have one being this handsome and successful and all but I’m on the same boat as you.”

There’s no explaining the surge of relief that Aomine feels and he scolds himself mentally for even granting himself the luxury because fuck him if he’s allowed to think their paths have any reason to cross after this.

This isn’t the first time he’s felt this strand of regret but it’s the first time he’s felt it this poignantly. Here, looking at Kise, watching him breathe, talk, smile, laugh—Aomine’s never felt so angry at himself for ever jeopardizing, for ever threatening Kise’s happiness.

If he’s being fair, he doesn’t deserve Kise. The world isn’t cruel enough to pit them together and there’s no reason, no valid reason for Aomine to even think for a second that he has anything left to ask for.

“So y—”

“I’m waiting for you to say it, you know,” Kise says suddenly, staring at the row of chairs before them.

“What?”

Kise takes a measured pause before he turns his head to look at Aomine. There’s a faint smile, one marked with twinges of desperation, of defenselessness, on Kise’s lips as he locks his gaze with Aomine’s.

“Say you missed me, you idiot.” He almost looks hurt, scared. “You did, didn’t you?”

“—Yeah,” Aomine says almost immediately. “I did, I fucking missed you.”

“Good,” Kise says, and his smile grows a tiny bit fonder, his eyes watery, “because you’re a fucking asshole and it isn’t fair if I missed you by myself.”

It’s been years since high school, since the days when they knew each other better than they knew themselves. Aomine isn’t sure what Kise’s done in those long years, whether he’s cursed Aomine or shed tears over him. What he does know is simple: Aomine doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but he’s ready to admit that he’s wanted it for a long time now.

“I’m sorry—”

“Tell me something,” Kise interjects, cutting Aomine’s apology off purposely. “Please just tell me I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about—thinking about _this_ since June.”

“You’re not.”

“What the hell took you so long then, you jerk?” Kise’s tone is teasing, joking, but Aomine can already see the tears that are threatening to spill. He’s always been a crybaby. “Aominecchi, you’re really the worst, you know? Making me do all of the talking and all of the pushing and, and you haven’t even told me why you never fucking called or asked about me. I’m not stupid, you know. I know you talked to Kurokocchi and _really_ , you’re so unfair and—”

“Kise.”

“—I don’t know why I’m still hung up on an asshole like you but it sucks because I can’t help it and I think I deserve better than this, better than _you_ …but…”

There are actual tears streaming down Kise’s face now and in this moment, he looks incredibly lost, incredibly _hurt_. Kise lifts his head to look Aomine in the eye again, swallowing the lump in his throat with a forced bravado.

“This is so unfair, you know. I deserve so much better than you but I’ve only ever wanted you.”

It hits Aomine harder than it should. The realization that Kise has been waiting all this time, _waiting_ without any expectations, without any promises is the only sign that Aomine needs to know that for all of the bullshit people spew about fate and soulmates—there might be a semblance of validity after all.

“Stop crying, you baby,” Aomine says through an unrestrained smile, reaching over to pull Kise forward by the lapels of his shirt, to kiss him slow and sure for every year they’ve spent away from each other.

He doesn’t let Kise go until he needs to pull back to breathe. When he does, he looks Kise square in the eye and tries to remember the face he sees—eyes red and puffy, wide with shock and still teary—and promises himself never to replicate it.

“I hate you,” Kise says sullenly.

“Yeah,” Aomine replies, letting his lips linger against the curve of Kise’s cheek.

“You’re the worst.”

He kisses Kise on the corner of his lips, tender. “Yeah.”

“Don’t,” Kise starts, “don’t leave again.”

“Yeah,” he says once more, kissing Kise on the lips fleetingly. “I won’t.”

-

At a quarter ‘til midnight, their flight finally announces the boarding groups. Kise’s smiling at this point, calmed and coaxed out of his tears. Aomine knows there’s a lot more to work on before whatever it is they have can be back to what it used to be—he knows, but he thinks it’s about time he take the challenge head-on. They don’t know if they’re soulmates, if this is even going to last, but he doesn’t even care at this point. He doesn’t care as long as the present is what it is.

“Where are you headed?” Kise asks as he hands his ticket over to the attendant. “Home?”

“Yeah,” Aomine replies, following suit. “You?”

“Yeah,” Kise says with a nod of his head. He enters the connection to the plane and waits for Aomine to catch up, looking back at him with a bright smile. “ _Let’s go home_.”

And this is when Aomine realizes he’s been too realistic for his own good. He feels it—the clenching, the nice, warm way his entire fucking chest _squeezes_ when he hears those words. Things seem so damn bright, much brighter than they originally were and he can tell he isn’t alone in what he’s feeling because Kise’s staring at him now, eyes wide and expression dazed as he searches for an answer in Aomine’s face.

They don’t say anything. Aomine just reaches down to lace their fingers together and Kise replaces his shock with a smile before squeezing Aomine’s hand.

Aomine thinks back to one-sided conversations with deities he never once believed in and thanks the same ones for ignoring his requests and knowing him better than he knows himself.

“So this is it, huh?” Kise says as they find their seats. “You really can’t leave again now.”

“I don’t need to,” Aomine says steadily. “There’s nowhere else I want to go.”

**  
_AD and KR_  
**


End file.
